Willow will not return. Deadline reports that the Disney+ series that served as a sequel to Ron Howard’s 1988 Lucasfilm fantasy adventure will not be getting a second season on the streamer.
Warwick Davis reprised his role as the title sorcerer in the eight-episode series, which picked up the adventures of his character from the film and explored the fate of magical chosen one Elora Danan — first introduced as a baby in the movie but played by Ellie Bamber in the series. The show was quirky (those musical choices!) but ended up weaving an entertaining tale that expanded the movie’s world greatly, introducing a band of misfits fumbling their way toward saving each other and maybe the world.
In an interview with Gizmodo after the season one finale in January, showrunner Jon Kasdan spoke about his hopes for Willow’s future — something teased in the post-credits tag, which revealed the existence of more “volumes” to the story. “We all knew and felt that where we were ending was certainly not the end of the story. And so [the tag] was a throwing of the cap over the wall, if you will, to sort of say ‘There really is [more].’ And what you can’t help doing when you’re surrounded by people you love working with is starting to talk about where it’s going to go … we had already been in that conversation when we were finishing shooting a year ago, and certainly, it’s continued in the intervening year,” he said.
At the time, Kasdan sounded hopeful about getting more seasons, and he certainly had ideas about where to take the story — but admitted he had “no idea” if Disney+ would deliver. He also said he understood that Willow may not have found an audience as big as he’d hoped, particularly since fantasy shows are now being released by nearly every streaming service these days. “It feels like it has gained some momentum and traction as the episodes have passed with the cumulative effect of the whole season. I don’t know if that’s just a reality of streaming television but it’s certainly interesting to see, like, can the show continue to be discovered and have a life?,” he wondered. “And is there a place for more of it in the business of our culture right now, and specifically in the genre which is so full of shows, frankly, and now movies too? Obviously, there was an appetite that hadn’t been fed in a long time. And now there’s a lot feeding it. So what we hoped to do was create something that was unique and original in that world. And actually it’s satisfying to see that for a lot of people, it is working in that way.”
You can stream Willow’s first (and now, sadly, only) season on Disney+.